Presidential elections in Russia are the usual foregone conclusion.
Speaker 1: With nothing left to chance.
Speaker 1: Not even the death in jail of the leading opposition figure
Speaker 1: Alexei Navalny - whose name Putin couldn't bring himself to speak.
Speaker 1: My guest is the Russian commentator Andrei Kolesnikov
Speaker 1: who heads the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Moscow.
Speaker 1: Was Navalny such a serious threat to Putin's regime that he
Speaker 1: had to be killed?
Speaker 2: Even being in prison Navalny was a threat to Putin, a competitor
Speaker 2: maybe invisible in an information field but at the same time quite mighty
Speaker 1: and quite impressive for the part of the population.
And because of that it was important to, let's say,
eliminate him from the political field.
So what’s it like to live with a government that kills
Speaker 1: its political opponents?
Speaker 1: And seen from Moscow- why the sudden spate of warnings
Speaker 1: by NATO officials about a Russian attack over the next few years?
Speaker 1: What do they know that we don’t?
Speaker 1: Andrei Kolesnikov, welcome to Conflict Zone.
Thanks a lot.
Speaker 2: It's March.
It's time for presidential elections in Russia.
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin wants a fifth term.
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin always gets what he wants.
Speaker 1: Is this as close to absolute power as it gets in Russia?
Yes, this is one more step to absolute power.
Speaker 2: But when we're asking ourselves, where was this turning point for him,
Speaker 2: I think that the peak of his regime, the peak of development
Speaker 2: of his regime was somewhere in the year 2020 when he called
Speaker 2: the referendum about some amendments to the constitution.
Speaker 2: But the main thing about zeroing of his presidential terms and now he's
Speaker 2: our eternal president.
Speaker 2: And after that, all the doors were open for any steps from his side,
Speaker 2: like this war of February 2022 and poisoning of Navalny in
Speaker 2: the same year, 2020.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have much to do with democracy, does it?
Speaker 1: These elections. Even, Mr Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told The
Speaker 1: New York Times last year: "Our presidential election isn't
Speaker 1: really a democracy.
Speaker 1: It's a costly bureaucracy."
Speaker 1: So why bother with this show?
Speaker 2: Because this is one more attempt to demonstrate to
Speaker 2: the majority of the Russian population that they are still
Speaker 2: a majority which is obedient, indifferent and ready to continue
Speaker 2: to accept Putin's initiatives.
Speaker 2: And this is important that minorities, they must
Speaker 2: understand that they are still minorities and they can't influence
Speaker 2: anything in this country because we have a majority which is
Speaker 2: influential, which supports Putin.
Speaker 2: So nothing to do with this political system.
Speaker 2: We can't change anything.
Speaker 2: And because of that, these elections are still significant.
Speaker 2: At the same time, this is one more rally around the flag.
Speaker 2: Why not to repeat this kind of rally and to refresh the legitimacy
Speaker 2: of the autocrat?
Speaker 1: All credible candidates have been eliminated
Speaker 1: way before the polling stations open.
Speaker 1: Boris Nadezhdin, the anti-war candidate, he was disqualified
Speaker 1: by the state.
Speaker 1: He got some traction for a while.
Speaker 1: Was he a threat?
Speaker 1: Was he deemed a threat?
Speaker 2: Nadezhdin was quite attractive to the public with
Speaker 2: liberal views. And you know in Russia there are millions of people
Speaker 2: who are sharing liberal pro-democratic,
Speaker 2: pro-Western, anti-Putin vision of the world.
Speaker 2: And because of that, Nadezhdin was kind of a hope for these people
Speaker 2: when they signed it for him.
Speaker 2: And it was understandable that Kremlin decided not to allow
Speaker 2: him to participate, because he could undermine the feeling of
Speaker 2: absolute consolidation around Putin, in the case of getting,
Speaker 2: I don't know, 5-6, even 10%.
Speaker 2: It meant, it could mean that Putin is not the only one who is-, who
Speaker 2: deserves the support and there are people with anti-war agenda.
Speaker 2: Not to mention that in that case Nadezhdin could demonstrate
Speaker 2: anti-war agenda via television and it could shake the views of
Speaker 2: the majority which is still magnetic to the TV set.
Speaker 2: So they allow it not-, they decided not to risk.
Speaker 1: Even that slight risk. And Alexei Navalny,
Speaker 1: dead in a prison camp in the Arctic Circle, was he ever really
Speaker 1: an electoral threat to Putin?
Speaker 1: Or was it that he and others like him were never going to be allowed
Speaker 1: to get anywhere near that status?
Speaker 2: Navalny didn't have an opportunity to participate
Speaker 2: in a legal political process, but when he did participate in the year
Speaker 2: 2013 during Moscow's mayor’s elections, he was
Speaker 2: extremely efficient, astonishingly efficient for Kremlin.
Speaker 2: And after that, they decided to not to allow him to participate
Speaker 2: in any kind of elections.
Speaker 2: So he was a real threat to Putin.
Speaker 2: And some moment, some moment in the past, the whole
Speaker 2: political process reduced to this fight between Navalny and Putin.
And in that sense, even being in prison, Navalny was a threat to Putin,
a competitor, maybe invisible in an information field,
but at the same time quite mighty and quite impressive
for the part of the population.
And because of that, it was important to, let's say, eliminate him from the political field.
Speaker 1: Do you buy the story that he was about to be swapped for
Speaker 1: a killer serving time in Germany?
Speaker 1: Do you buy that story?
Speaker 2: We don't know the truth, maybe we'll not know it,
Speaker 2: but it looks like a plausible story.
Speaker 2: And in that sense it was not a coincidence that he was,
Speaker 2: let's say, maybe killed, maybe poisoned, maybe something else.
Speaker 2: We have to wait for some results of his team's research.
Speaker 2: Maybe they can clear up some details.
Speaker 1: Navalny's family is pretty clear, and his colleagues
Speaker 1: are pretty clear that the state did kill him.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't seriously argue with that, would you?
Speaker 2: I would say like this, the experience of this regime
Speaker 2: demonstrates that it is possible.
Speaker 2: Let's remember the case of Skripal or any other cases and
Speaker 2: Putin several times repeated during his career that patriotically
Speaker 2: oriented people did that or this and because of that among people
Speaker 2: with, let's say, liberal views there is no doubt, that Navalny
Speaker 2: could be killed.
Speaker 2: No, we don't have conclusive evidence of it, but the feeling is
Speaker 2: very strong among Russian civil society.
Speaker 1: We know that they tried and failed to kill him back
Speaker 1: in 2020, and we know because millions listened to a government
Speaker 1: assassin describing his previously unsuccessful attempt to kill
Speaker 1: Navalny, little realizing that he was actually talking to Navalny
Speaker 1: and being recorded by him at the time.
Speaker 1: So nobody's going to believe any government denials, are they,
Speaker 1: on this score?
Speaker 2: You know what means-, what do we mean by nobody?
Speaker 2: Because the majority still prefers to believe in an official version,
Speaker 2: or prefers not to think about this horrible story.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of Russians,
Speaker 2: they did know about the poisoning.
Speaker 2: They did know about the death of Navalny
Speaker 2: in this camp near Arctic Circle.
Speaker 2: But the majority prefers not to bother itself, not to pay too much
Speaker 2: attention to these horrors in order to keep themselves mentally normal.
Speaker 2: This is immoral, but the majority prefers not to know anything about
Speaker 2: like casualties, hostilities, deaths, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 2: And because of that, it's more about belief or disbelief among
Speaker 2: people with normal views, with democratic views.
Speaker 1: Gregory Vaypan, a lawyer at the human rights group Memorial
Speaker 1: said: "If they could kill Navalny, they could kill anybody else."
Speaker 1: If he's right, where does all this end?
Speaker 1: All the killings, all the political prisoners.
Speaker 1: Where does this end?
Speaker 2: I know the real threat is to political prisoners for sure.
Speaker 2: We don't have political opposition in a proper sense of the word right now,
Speaker 2: because of a high level of repressions, higher than in
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union in the last years of its existence.
Speaker 2: And I would say that unfortunately, for instance, people like Vladimir
Speaker 2: Kara-Murza or Ilya Yashin could be under threat.
Speaker 2: Not everyone in the dissident community, but the main, the most
Speaker 2: vocal people from the political opposition, because part of
Speaker 2: the political opposition is abroad, so parts of the
Speaker 2: leaders are imprisoned.
Speaker 2: So for people who are imprisoned, there is a real threat,
Speaker 2: I think, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: You spoke after Navalny's funeral about moral
Speaker 1: resistance among the population, people carrying flowers and candles
Speaker 1: to his memorials.
Speaker 1: How much of that moral resistance is there left in Russia?
Speaker 2: I can stress this word “moral”, because as I said,
Speaker 2: political opposition is not so efficient right now.
Speaker 2: And this is more about moral resistance than
Speaker 2: about political resistance.
Speaker 2: These people can't fight and they do not want to fight for power.
Speaker 2: They don't have leaders, they don't have organizations which are
Speaker 2: totally liquidated by the regime, even small NGO's.
Speaker 2: But the death of Navalny demonstrated, the funeral of
Speaker 2: Navalny demonstrated, that this civil society still here.
Speaker 2: We must differentiate society as such, which is very indifferent and
Speaker 2: passive and full of conformists, and civil society — the society of
Speaker 2: responsible citizens, who still hope for the best for
Speaker 2: their country, who are in a permanent horror because of this war.
Speaker 2: And they demonstrated that they are here.
Speaker 2: It was a heroic step for people who are going to the funeral, because
Speaker 2: the face recognition system is working and sometimes policemen are
Speaker 2: coming to the flats of these people after a different kind of events of
Speaker 2: funerals, like laying flowers, at the places of memory of political
Speaker 2: repressions, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 2: So if you want to see this civil society in Russia, we can open for
Speaker 2: instance a website over there in form of the concrete statistics
Speaker 2: about persecutions, about criminal persecutions,
Speaker 2: administrative persecutions, extrajudicial persecutions.
A lot of examples of this kind of problems for Russian citizens.
But here is the civil society, which is still ready to resist. And they're ready to
at least to think about the current situation,
think about their responsibility, collective responsibility.
Speaker 1: You talked about Navalny's legacy.
Speaker 1: I'd like to know how long you think it will last.
Speaker 1: Isn't it inevitable that as the years go by, there will be less
Speaker 1: and less opposition? Moral or real.
Speaker 1: Repression works, doesn't it? Repression's efficient.
Speaker 2: Yes, repressions work, but at the same time
Speaker 2: this fatigue from regime is also here and in the case of a minor
Speaker 2: success of civil society and a demonstration of its views, some
Speaker 2: people have been hesitating, who are passive conformists, they can
Speaker 2: share the views of this active civil society activists.
Speaker 2: So in that sense, Russia is not hopeless.
Speaker 2: And I think it was just like in Soviet times, when millions of
Speaker 2: people were ready for changes, when Gorbachev took the power
Speaker 2: and this big bunch of population is also ready for changes.
Speaker 2: But you know, in current circumstances kind of a signal
Speaker 2: must come from the very top and without changing the first person,
Speaker 2: I guess that serious changes in Russia are impossible.
Speaker 1: There are now extraordinary efforts, and you've
Speaker 1: outlined some of them, to clamp down on even the slightest
Speaker 1: infractions of this expanding Penal Code that the authorities
Speaker 1: keep adding to.
Speaker 1: We hear of teachers in schools reporting 10-, 11-year-old pupils to
Speaker 1: the security police.
Speaker 1: Books are banned, people arrested on the metro, because they were
Speaker 1: reading something that their fellow passengers didn't like.
Speaker 1: Every case pursued with the utmost vigor and brutality.
Speaker 1: And I suppose my question is, is the state really that insecure
Speaker 1: about its hold on power and its people?
Speaker 2: You know, it's more about self-development
Speaker 2: of Russian-style authoritarianism.
Speaker 2: I would say this is not simply authoritarianism, it's more about -
Speaker 2: I name it “hybrid totalitarianism”,
Speaker 2: semi-totalitarianism, because the state is trying to infiltrate into
Speaker 2: all the spheres of the private life of people.
Speaker 2: It wants to control, for instance, theatre repertoires, book markets,
Speaker 2: libraries, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: But nevertheless this society is modernized, this is urban,
Speaker 2: well-educated society and people are trying to keep their private
Speaker 2: spaces in the more and more or less normal situation.
Speaker 2: And books are still printed.
Speaker 2: Some movies could appear in this, such a
Speaker 2: strange half-totalitarian space.
Speaker 2: So yes, there are different threats like denunciations from
Speaker 2: your compatriots, but nevertheless it is still civil society and I can
Speaker 2: repeat, it is not hopeless and it can survive this period.
Speaker 2: But the space of liberty, of freedom is narrowing, this is true,
Speaker 2: but if you want to do something, you can try, and some people are
Speaker 2: trying to write articles to be vocal and to talk, at least to talk
Speaker 2: about the current situation.
Speaker 1: It's not, it's not helped, is it, by the fact
Speaker 1: that so many ordinary citizens appear willing to inform on each
Speaker 1: other, on their colleagues, on their families and their friends.
Speaker 1: How destructive is that to the fabric of Russian society?
Speaker 1: Destroys trust, doesn't it?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's true. It's true.
Speaker 2: The trust is not the strong side of this society, the trust to each other.
Speaker 2: But some people simply prefer not to talk with unknown persons.
Speaker 2: They prefer to talk, not so...
Speaker 2: They're trying not to be so vocal, sitting in cafés, for instance, and
Speaker 2: they prefer not to discuss political issues.
Speaker 2: This is true.
Speaker 2: But you know at the same time again who wants to resist can try to do it.
Speaker 2: For instance, there is such a new magazine which was initiated by
Speaker 2: the Nobel Laureate Dmitry Muratov with the title 'Gorbi',
Speaker 2: and the cooperation was Gorbachev Foundation.
Speaker 2: And this is one of the attempts to create something new.
Speaker 2: Even in these circumstances, there are some problems with
Speaker 2: this magazine, but it is still in the field, so why not to try to do something.
Speaker 2: And this — it contributes something like hope for the future.
Speaker 1: When we talk about hope, let's also talk about the war
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, which has of course exacerbated the repression.
Speaker 1: Lev Gudkov, leading Russian sociologist says there's a high
Speaker 1: degree of support for the war, highest among the educated and
Speaker 1: the educated in Moscow.
Speaker 1: Does that surprise you?
Speaker 2: Yes, there are a lot of surprising stories,
Speaker 2: especially in the field of mass psychology and mass sociology.
Speaker 2: And you know, this is all about people who are afraid of
Speaker 2: changing their life.
Speaker 2: They are trying to avoid problems for themselves.
Speaker 2: It means that they're full of, let's say, double thinking.
Speaker 1: Are they pretending the war doesn't exist?
Speaker 2: They can't avoid mentioning it or thinking about it,
Speaker 2: but they try not to do it publicly.
Speaker 2: Maybe the same people-, they want to continue their careers,
Speaker 2: for instance, in the universities or something like that.
Speaker 2: But in their private space, in their cuisines, like it was in
Speaker 2: Soviet times, they can discuss freely the current situation with horror,
Speaker 2: with some assessments which are not public, let’s say.
Speaker 2: This is more about private assessments, private life.
Speaker 2: So this is more about double thinking.
Speaker 1: You said recently that Putin has made clear Russia is
Speaker 1: fighting a permanent background war with the West.
Speaker 1: That argument gives him his rationale, his way
Speaker 1: to maintain power.
Speaker 1: Does Putin want that war, in your view?
Speaker 2: Oh yes, he wants. He's a main initiator.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that in this personalistic regime, Putin was the main source
Speaker 2: of this war, of this ideology which justifies war.
Speaker 2: The Russian idea with national and nationalistic
Speaker 2: and imperialistic ideas.
Speaker 2: Very archaic appeals to traditions and spiritual values, etc.
Speaker 2: And he must invent the goal for this society.
Speaker 2: So this is not communism or capitalism.
Speaker 2: And they invented in Kremlin this permanent war with the West.
Speaker 2: The West was always attacking us, so we must defend ourselves and
Speaker 2: even our expansion. This is more about defense. And...
Speaker 1: But recent intelligence reports-, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
Speaker 1: Recent intelligence reports in the West have suggested Russia
Speaker 1: intends to double the number of its troops on the border with
Speaker 1: tBaltic states and Finland.
Speaker 1: And people have spoken, officials, government officials in several
Speaker 1: countries have spoken of the fact that there could possibly be
Speaker 1: an attack by Russia on a NATO country over the next few years.
Speaker 1: How plausible do you think that is?
Speaker 2: I think this is Putin's PR, to look so mighty, so impressive.
Speaker 2: And I guess he wants Ukraine.
Speaker 2: In his political philosophy, this is a part of Russia, for sure.
Speaker 2: And he wants to return and strengthen, as he says, these territories.
Speaker 2: He doesn't care about Baltic states, Finland or Poland.
Speaker 2: This is a lip service, in my opinion.
Speaker 2: He will not have enough resources for one more flank, one more front.
Speaker 2: He simply wants to continue this permanent war with the West
as a goal for the society.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, in a practical terms, in applied terms,
Speaker 2: he doesn't want to take, for instance Baltic states, because it
Speaker 2: will mean a real war with NATO.
Speaker 2: It would be much more serious than this war of attrition with Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Does NATO look weak to Russia? To Putin?
Speaker 2: Not so weak, but for this very majority of the society,
Speaker 2: Putin looks like a strongman, who is equal to NATO.
Speaker 2: NATO is more about the image of the main enemy, the United States
Speaker 2: of America. And Europe is kind of a satellite of NATO
Speaker 2: and the United States.
Speaker 1: You said last month that despite all the nuclear
Speaker 1: saber-rattling that we've heard from Putin, they don't want and
Speaker 1: they're afraid of nuclear war.
Speaker 1: What makes you so sure of that?
Speaker 2: I hope that they are not so suicidal.
Speaker 2: They must understand that even the use of the technical nukes
Speaker 2: could be suicidal for their regime, for their country.
Speaker 2: They want to live. They want to enjoy this life.
Speaker 2: And because of that, yes, this nuclear blackmailing
Speaker 2: is quite impressive and...
Speaker 1: And quite effective, isn't it?
Speaker 1: It's quite effective, because it's prevented the West from giving
Speaker 1: the most sophisticated weapons to Ukraine.
Speaker 2: Yes, and the problem for Russia is that the
Speaker 2: very conversations, the talk about the nuclear war
Speaker 2: became such a light talk.
Speaker 2: We can do it. Why not?
Speaker 2: This is the main danger to persuade the domestic public
Speaker 2: that it is possible. This is a danger.
Speaker 1: A British historian wrote recently that societies like Russia,
Speaker 1: autocracies don't bend, but they can break.
Speaker 1: Do you believe that? After all, Russia has broken.
Speaker 1: The Soviet Union broke up, the Berlin Wall came down.
Speaker 1: Communism was denounced as a failed experiment.
Speaker 1: Under what circumstances do you think Russia could conceivably
Speaker 1: come apart now?
Speaker 2: You know, when we are talking about the future and
Speaker 2: the behaviour of our elites, they're behaving like, according to
Speaker 2: the proverb: 'Après nous le déluge' — after us the flood.
Speaker 2: And in that sense, they hope that they have enough resources to
Speaker 2: continue this war until the physical end of Putin and his team.
Speaker 2: But the resources could be depleted and the next generation of
Speaker 2: politicians, they will have to take responsibility for the country,
Speaker 2: for the European security.
Speaker 2: And this is an interest of the West, common interest of-,
Speaker 2: mutual interest of Russia and the West, to have a new generation of
Speaker 2: people who can recreate this country from zero.
Speaker 2: And this moment will come, because resources are not eternal.
Speaker 1: So the beautiful Russia that Navalny, Alexei Navalny talked about,
Speaker 1: does exist somewhere down the line, in your view?
Speaker 2: It exists in souls and in brains of pro-democratic Russians.
Speaker 2: And they are here, and they will be ready for changes
Speaker 2: when the time will come.
Speaker 1: Andrei Kolesnikov, thank you very much for being on Conflict Zone.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me here.